


Taken A Toll

by Heather_Kiki



Category: Ocean's (Movies), Ocean's 8, Ocean's Eight
Genre: Angst, Angst but also fluff, F/F, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Post Prison, Prison, Team as Family, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 03:31:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15088061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heather_Kiki/pseuds/Heather_Kiki
Summary: For the prompt: "we'll figure this out" / "you make me feel alive" or "take my jacket. It's cold outside"Debbie Ocean doesn't know how to deal with grief, but with Lou (and her team) by her side, they'll figure it out.





	Taken A Toll

**Author's Note:**

> This is for a tumblr prompt, and I first posted on there but now it's here. You can drop me a prompt on my tumblr (debxlou).

Debbie had been quiet lately, Lou had noticed. And it wasn’t her usual quiet either. It was a more withdrawn type of silence, where Lou knew she was thinking, reflecting. So when Constance announced that Debbie was missing three weeks after their heist, she wasn’t exactly surprised.

 

“Yo, Lou,” Constance called to her, bringing her out of her thoughts, “where mom at?” The team had taken to calling both Lou and Debbie mom, though in this instance she knew Constance was refering to their ringleader, not her right hand.

 

Lou rolled her eyes. “How should I know?”

 

“Well,” Daphne spoke up from where she was reading a magazine and simultaneously having a conversation with Rose and Amita, “you guys are like, always together. I’m surprised you aren’t with her now, actually, wherever she is.”

 

“Again, you’re assuming I know where she is.”

 

“We live in twenty-eighteen.” Nine Ball scoffed, to which Lou raised an eyebrow expectantly. “I’m just saying,” she started to explain, “it’s easy to find her location as long as her phone is on, all I’d have to do would be to—”

 

“Spare us the details,” Rose interrupted, “I’m too sober for this.”

 

“Yeah,” Amita sighed in agreement, “Lou can you please get Debbie so we can all start getting drunk?”

 

“And high,” Nine Ball added.

 

And this was how Lou Miller found herself riding on her motorcycle, at ten in the evening, searching for a missing felon. She didn’t have to search long, already having some idea where Debbie was, and before long she found herself standing outside the resting place of Danny Ocean.

 

“Hi Lou,” Debbie mumbled as soon as Lou stepped inside, pulling her arm away from her torso to greet the other woman. In her hand she delicately held a martini glass, and every so often she would swirl it around, never placing the glass near her lips.

 

“You gonna drink that?” Lou asked, walking towards the bench Debbie sat on. Debbie looked tired, she noticed as she swiftly sat next to her. Her long brown hair looked as if she had run her hand through it too many times, and her eyes like she had spent too many nights awake, unable to sleep.

 

To put it frankly, Lou was worried about her. Prison didn’t sit well with anyone, not even hardass crime lords, and she knew that inside, Debs was anything but a hardass. She got no answer, so she tried again. “You okay, baby?” Her voice was soft, afraid to break the woman looking so close to breaking.

 

Silence again, but Lou gave her time, she knew Debbie had to collect her thoughts. “When I w—” her voice cracked. Debbie started again, clearing her throat. “When I was in prison, it never occured to me that the world would keep turning. That, when I got out, people would have changed. I thought that I could pick up where I left off, y’know. But I can’t because everything’s changed, the world’s changed, Danny’s changed, you’ve changed. And for a while I didn’t notice. While we were doing the heist, I got so caught up in the past that I forget I’m here in the present, and I don’t know if I can move on or if I’m always gonna be five years behind because I am. And now the heist’s over, I’ve got nothing to do, nowhere to be, because before heists were enough. But now? They just aren't enough. I'm not enough.”

 

Lou’s heart was breaking for her. Her Debbie who was so confused and angry, and lonely and grieving — _oh God_ she was grieving hard. Grieving for her brother, who left no clue as to whether he was dead or alive, and for a life she left behind five years ago, when she was put behind bars.

 

And suddenly Lou found her face wet with tears, from staring into Debbie’s tear-streaked face. Eyes so desperate and alone, silently screaming _help me, help me_ , suffering quietly yet constantly.

 

Lou cursed herself for not noticing sooner. For letting Debbie attempt to solve the problem on her own, like it was some badly planned heist, and failing because it wasn’t at all like any crime she’d committed before.

 

“Baby,” Lou said, pulling her love close, “I’m so sorry, oh God I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking stupid. I should’ve been there t—”

 

“I deserve it.” Debbie said, quietly, “I wasn’t there for you, for five years. I didn’t listen and I got myself put in prison and I missed everything. I could’ve done—”

 

Lou stopped her. “It’s not your fault.” She said, meaning so much more than being put in prison. Meaning Danny dying, and Lou cutting herself off from the rest of the world. Meaning Rusty never calling anymore, and her parents not talking. Meaning so much more. “Baby it isn’t your fault,” Lou whispers over and over and over again, hoping if she says it enough Debbie will believe her.

 

 

* * *

 

She wipes her tears on Lou’s leather jacket once she’s calmed down, though she’s still shaky from emotional exhaustion. “Let’s go, honey.” She says, voice raspy and dry. She hates it. Hates that it betrays her moment of weakness, her lapse of sanity, but, then again, it’s only Lou. Lou, who knows her better than anyone, better than herself. “The girls are probably waiting.”

 

They get up, hands clasped, feet shaking. Just before they get to the door, Lou turns and says, “Debbie, you’ll be okay. We’ll figure this out, okay? You have me and you always will,” which makes Debbie almost want to cry again. Lou cups her face and kisses her, reassuring Debbie that her words will forever be true.

 

She shivers as Lou opens the door, the gust of wind that would be refreshing under better circumstances only reminds her of Danny, for some irrational reason. Maybe it’s the reminder of the windy autumn afternoons spent with him. He always said it was his favourite season.

 

“Hey,” Lou says, climbing onto her bike, “take my jacket.” When Debbie refuses, she helps her climb onto the bike, only to place the jacket onto her shoulders. It makes Debbies heart glow. “It’s cold outside.”

 

And when they get back to Lou’s, the girls concerned, rushing to help, Constance immediately enveloping her in a hug, Lou watching with a smile on her face that feels like _love_ , she can’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, she’s not alone anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! (Drop me a prompt on tumblr if you want.)


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